With a single-day rise of 31,521 infections, the total number of cases in India stood at 97,67,371 on Thursday. As many as 412 fatalities pushed the toll to 1,41,772. At present, the total number of active cases is 3,72,293 while 92,53,306 people have recovered so far.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said putting up posters or signs outside the homes of Covid-positive patients was no longer required unless there was direction from a competent authority. The apex court said posters could be affixed in specific cases by authorities under the Disaster Management Act.

On the vaccines front, one crore health care workers, two crore frontline workers including the police and armed forces, and about 27 crore people above the age of 50 years and those less than 50 years with associate comorbidities — these are the three groups who should be simultaneously vaccinated on priority depending on the availability of a vaccine, a high-level expert committee has recommended to the government. “Every single Indian who needs to be vaccinated will be vaccinated,” Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan, who co-chairs the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration of Covid-19 (NEGVAC), said, talking about the recommendations.

The Centre on Tuesday said that the Indian regulatory framework has specific provisions for grant of emergency use authorization for vaccines, and the risk-benefit ratio will be a key metric to grant the license in a situation where vaccine manufacturers have submitted only Phase 2 clinical trials data.

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